Lephys

Agreed. I wasn't suggesting it should ONLY be applied to consumables.

Hey... that's just how he scrolls...

Welp, the game's made for readers, which can only mean it's text-based now. You'll literally "read" your surroundings, because the forests will be built from ANSI characters. Totally launching a giant hate campaign against the game now. THANKS, ASSUMPTION! *high fives Assumption*

I commend you, sir, for being constructively against the specifics of previous suggestions by actually contributing a "how COULD we make it better, though?" after voicing your dislike. See how that works, people who just disagree? (really no one specifically here...) You say buffs, I say factor modifiers. You could really look at any factor modifier as a buff. "Oh, hey, if you equip that sword against light armor instead of that mace, you get a damage buff. And if you equip that mace, you get an armor penetration buff! If you send your archer to high ground, he gets a range buff!" Honestly, I blame the oversimplification of such things that has led to all the MMO terminology. . Not that "buff" was necessarily invented by MMOs (I'm not sure), but it's heavily used in that same library of terms. And those terms overly generalize entire aspects of design (such as factor modification) into a simple, bland thing, so that every time you think of something similar to a buff, you can't help but think about a spell you cast before every battle in a chore-like fashion to make sure you have all the best numbers under-the-hood for combat. But, I DO agree in the same way JFSOCC did, and I agree with him. You're wrong that "buffs" are the wrong way to go, in that I don't think altering factors is inherently lame or bad. However, buffs as we know them are not always very splendid. Like JFSOCC, I think it would be best to fix the wonky design details rather than abandon an otherwise valuable facet of design.

Well, it's potentially a graphical way of saying "Hedge Maze, +5 stealth when you rest.". Which is assumed to be more than just sleeping, and you're supposed to have a few hours of free time for your peeps to go setup and complete their own challenges in the hedge maze. Of course, I still agree with you that it would be pretty awesome to have some active use for the hedge maze, rather than passively abstract everything. Ideally, that is.

I'm pretty "good" at games, but by that I mean that I play pretty much all kinds of video games I can get my hands on, from PC to various console controllers, and it all comes pretty intuitively to me. I get into them very easily without really trying too hard. Have ever since I was 4. But, yeah, I'm not "good" at games in the "Give me a controller and a new shooter and I'll make graceful, leaping headshots 24/7" or anything. But, I'm very, very familiar with the "that looks like loads of fun, but I feel like I'm going to be no good at it" thing, as I've seen that in oodles of people growing up. I don't think all people just naturally get a quick feel for the way controls and systems come together in the midst of narrative/lore. I can see how things can be pretty intimidating, and the more you can help someone get into all that, the better. There are plenty of games I've played that have been quite inviting, despite still being tricky and challenging, while others have made me think "Man... if I weren't so used to all this stuff, I would NEVER attempt this game. I'd've given up in a heartbeat..."

Hehe. I kinda sympathize with him, because he says things in such a manner that people could easily take them the wrong way. Like that; "Are you saying that the consumer base SUCKS AT GAMES?!". Then other people chime in with "Are you saying you should just design games to hand-hold everyone?!" Reminds me of the way I think/word things. Except, you know... minus 500% of the words.

Heh... well, the thing about D&D is, any imbalance in the rules COULD be corrected by the DM. You had an actual person there, thinking, on-the-fly, about everything that was happening, and going "okay, it says you're supposed to roll and get loot from THIS table, but I don't think you should have an Axe of the DemonSlayer +12 at level 3, so... we're gonna tweak that rule and I'm going to restrict you to a different loot table, because reason." That's why the problems are so much more evident when a hard-coded RPG's rule-enforcement tries to emulate the exact same system, devoid of on-the-fly human tweaking. 8P The D&D rules (some versions more than others) have always been a pretty good foundation for PnP gaming with a human DM, but definitely aren't the most perfectly balanced systems for translating straight into a video game.

I agree, which is precisely why I'm advocating a specific approach to food, and not just the sheer inclusion of some unknown manner of food mechanic that could be just as overworked and micro-managey as in many other systems. I was going to say that I'd rather have normal ammo still be limited, BUT... with the spells-per-day system (at least in P:E), your lowest-tier of spells is unlimited use. So, I could see basic ammo being abstractly unlimited in nature. However, when I say basic ammo, I mean basic. Like small rocks you find on the ground for a sling, as opposed to metal bullets of the appropriate weight/shape, etc. Very basic arrows, as opposed to nicely-crafted razor-sharp steel arrowhead arrows. Etc. Basically, if it were going to be unlimited like that, I'd want the unlimited ammo to be to special ammo as the unlimited spells are to the non-unlimited spells. So, if that 3 fire damage spell, Scorch (made up just for example), is unlimited, but 8-10 damage Magic Missile is not, then I wouldn't expect an Archer's basic, unlimited arrows to do 10 damage. That sort of thing. *shrug*... On that note, I'm also cool with your arrows being limited, but it being understood that you retrieve the majority of them after combat has ended. So that they're per-encounter replenished, also much like a category of spells/abilities in P:E. Anywho, I'm vying for food (IF it's implemented) to work in a similar manner. You have unlimited "this prevents me from dying" food, as it's understood you gather berries or carry around a cracker... who knows. So only the food above-and-beyond basic stay-alive food would be managed, in exactly the same manner that you would have only the arrows that are above-and-beyond basic shoot-things-with-my-bow arrows would be managed. So, with that in mind, specifically (and not just thinking of random other food systems that sucked in games), I invite your thoughts on this. Exactly. The flaming arrow costs something and/or is limited in nature (if you found it and it "didn't cost anything," even though it technically cost the effort of finding it; killing something, opening a chest, traveling TO that thing you killed or that chest, etc.), therefore you have a choice as to whether or not you buy it, or obtain it, or sell it, or use one this fight, or 10 this fight, or save them for later, etc. You could have food produce choice-worthy bonuses, as well. Make it relatively rare (to find good enough foodstuffs that it actually provides a significant enough bonus to represent with mechanics), and now you've got a significant choice. Between what to eat when, and when to rest, etc. It would be a minor thing, but it could easily provide some benefit and layering to the system without causing a bunch of trouble. It also gives various skills and such an additional purpose. High survival skill or Knowledge: Flora? Your character can locate beneficial berries and/or other plants to directly eat and/or cook with, so the next time you camp, you can cook a meal of +5% stamina regen as opposed to just a regular meal that keeps you alive. Or maybe another foodstuff grants +1 to initiative rolls until you rest again. Etc. Do you want the initiative bonus, or the stamina regen bonus? You can't have both. Alas, choice. And yet, if you DON'T have a +1 to initiative rolls for the next span between rest points, the world doesn't end. And thus, if you don't have a character with ultra high Survival skill to find those berries, you're still fine. As I said, minor stuff. I'm not talking food that has the same impact as which weapon you have, or what abilities/spells you use or something.

Well, that block you quoted me on was mostly pointing out all the details of reality that we don't really need to see in an RPG, then the very easily-simplified ones that I think would work well. Hence the comparison of food selection to ammo selection. People hear "food" and "cooking" and shout "ultra-complextity!", but you say "hey, lots of different types of ammo!", and people just say "YAY! AWESOMENESS", rather than "Hmm... I think we should really just assume your people can acquire ammo. They're not going to go into battle without arrows. Let's just leave that out of the gameplay, shall we?" Double-standards, if you ask me.

No worries. Truly. Intent is the biggest thing. Unless your intent is to simply be mean or attack people, there's nothing for you to feel bad about. You misunderstood me (and, admittedly, I'm easy to misunderstand, despite my best efforts), and you realized it, and meant no ill-will. I appreciate the apology. And I am always willing to try to re-word things or explain them in different ways, and do not think ill of anyone who didn't get my meaning the first go. English is the only language I comprehend, so I have nothing but admiration for anyone who understands it (even imperfectly) on top of their first language, or even multiple other languages.

You could always emulate the PnP system of the DM/GM granting various little XP nuggets for various things. Well, emulate it to a degree. So that, if you complete a quest, and your Ranger helped you spot all the guards on a wall, he gets an extra 100xp or something. By the time everyone's awarded XP, even if the brunt of the quest gives everyone 500, some might end up with 650, some with 550, some with 700, etc. Then, in a different quest, there's going to be the potential for different bonuses, so the Ranger might not have much to do with his particular skillset and capabilities, while some other character gets a bit more boost, still all depending on what you do. It would still keep everyone pretty close (By level 15 or so, you MIGHT have someone at about a full level above someone else, maximum), but would still offer dynamic moments of actually leveling. It IS pretty nice when you don't go from "my entire party is level 4" one encounter, to "my entire party has all new skills and abilities, and has gained a collective total of about 60 points in things" in the next encounter. You either end up with a HUGE drop in the difficulty of encounters, or you try to plan for the encounters to match the party's level, so that any fluctuation in optional XP gains will result in the party NOT hitting the next level, but still hitting that "this encounter assumes you hit the next level" encounter, which would be bad... *shrug*. Just me thoughts.

Speaking of that... I realize that you don't really have any way of knowing, before looting someone, how many of some concealed item they were carrying, but, it would be great to have some kind of consistency in wht the combatant actually HAD and what you find on them. For example, if an enemy goblin drinks 2 healing potions in combat, you probably should be less likely to find healing potions on him (because he used some) than on a different goblin who was killed before he had time to drink any potions. There are other issues floating around this: I hate when enemies have infinite consumables in combat, and I hate it when an enemy drops like 17 usable consumables, but never used a one of them during that 7-minute fight. It just doesn't make any sense, and there are plenty of other methods by which to deliver the loot you intend for the player to have, without nonsensically putting it into an incompetent goblin's pocket. An enemy mage shouldn't run around with 5 fireball scrolls in his pack, then just run around casting acid bolt the whole battle, even while he and all his buddies are slaughtered. But, also, he shouldn't cast fireball 17 times, only to then die and reveal that fireball was nowhere in his spellbook, but you find 17 fireball scrolls on him, etc. Again, yeah, maybe he just had THAT many scrolls, but... at a certain point, that's pretty infeasible. You're not going to have someone with 50-readied full-health restoring potions. That's nonsensical on so many levels. Anywho... I think enemy inventory integrity would be awesome (even if half of it's behind-the-scenes.)

o_O...? I don't follow. Different ammo types is too much reality?

Well, finding water, and making camp... you either do these things, or you don't. Without some extra system (like storms, or camp-discovery survival or something), there's no difference in the way in which you make camp. If you don't find water, you die of thirst. So, yeah, gain, without survival mechanics (which would be a bit out-of-place in this game), there's no point in representing the finding of water. It would be a waste of gameplay and coding. But food... like I said, even if it's assumed you don't starve to death, different foods can have different effects. ESPECIALLY when you're not restricted to the realm of reality. I mean, they already have different effects in reality (hence rigorous diets for Olympic athletes, and specific ration packs for soldiers and such.) Anywho, it wouldn't be much different than choosing what kinds of things to say in dialogue (even though it's assumed your character can speak, you choose what they say), or choosing what weapon to use (you're going to fight, but you choose HOW you fight). Or, better yet, ammo. You're going to stock arrows, but you can usually use various different ones. Will you use poison arrows, or will you use frost arrows? Etc. Same thing. It's not complicated to stock your quivers with ammo, but you still get to pick which kind.

I've gotta think, though, that the ability to keep 3 combatants within striking distance (to control 2 extra opponents via melee confrontation) would be rendered a bit moot by the lack of some additional capacity to withstand a bit of additional melee punishment, whether it's that the Fighter's just much better at not-getting-hit (to prevent him from taking 3 times the punishment every time he utilizes his 3-person engagement), or can directly mitigate more damage and/or suffer more punishment (natural armor/hitpoints). True, I don't think it's as simple as "a Fighter can just be hit all day long and not care," but they're probably a little more tanky in that respect; taking hits/dealing with melee combat more efficiently/defensively. This is one reason I hate the whole "DPS/SUPPORT/TANK" MMO terminology that's somehow become so big; it drastically oversimplifies everything. So then, you talk about something like the P:E Fighter class being, for lack of a better word, a good tank, and a lot of people immediately assume that means an excessive ability to passively soak up damage, rather than a combination of capability and active control that allows for the efficient handling of the damage potential of hostile melee combatants.

Yeah, I've gotta second that I have a weird love for the grind, and endless loot and such, in a strange way. I think it's kind of like enjoyment of dessert. You know, pie is delicious, but obviously just eating pie all day, every day, would leave you with a stomach ache and manlnourishment, and probably diabetes. This is why I can enjoy the crap out of Diablo and Borderlands 2 for bits at a time, but I'm not just itching and needing, ever, to play games like that with every ounce of free time I have like I am with games that engage me with other things as well. I mean, the "grind" we always refer to isn't a completely separate thing that just isn't in most games. It's a matter of extents: how much of what you do is indulging in the act of combatting and looting and gaining, itself, over a certain amount of time, in order to achieve "goals" in the game, and how much is actually progressing other purposeful aspects of the game? The boiled down difference between grinding for good equipment and not-grinding for good equipment is basically just the nature of what you're doing in order to acquire the equipment. Did you just get 1,000 gold from each story mission/quest, and therefore you could already afford that new equipment when you stopped by the merchants in between quests? Not grind. Did you spend the exact same amount of time running around doing things that didn't really feel all that purposeful to you but that earned you enough money to buy that equipment? Grind. *shrug*, anywho... I agree that we're often not talking about COMPLETELY separate things when we talk about bad things in games, but rather, extents and imbalances. A game that's 99% about loot, and 1% about not-loot, is probably pretty imbalanced. Sure, all that loot is really fun, in a way, but the game is missing something. Eventually, you get thirsty, and all you have to drink is a milkshake. But you just want some water.

I do not disagree. Well, except that I wouldn't say it was devoid of tactical aspects. Just that it was much more primitive in that regard. But, my point was merely that the typical fixed perspective of the isometric games supports tactical combat, and not to comment on the specific level of tactics involved in any specific game designed using said perspective. So, while 3D games are pretty great, too, I think there'd still be some value in actually fixing the camera into at least a mock isometric perspective for the sake of tactically managing 6 people on a battlefield of countless more. Case and point: Dragon Age. Granted, I played it on console (didn't have a very good PC at the time), so the camera/view controls could've been much better on PC. But, controlling everything from a very close 3rd-person perspective was FAR less efficient than the same party control would've been had the game been an isometric game.

I would love some kind of interval-based food system, as opposed to the "there's a bunch of food, but it's all really just an alternative to buffs/healing items." Maybe different stuff gives different passive, duration-based bonuses, and it's just a simple matter of slotting foodstuffs into some ration slots (kind of like ammo slots in the IE games), then clicking an "eat" button. Or, better yet, the party just eats when you rest. No "go into each person's inventory and use the item you want to eat, exactly when you want to eat it, every time, every 15 minutes." Simplified. Obviously people eat, and maybe what you eat mildly affects you in various ways. Especially in a fantasy world, in which you can come up with all kinds of fruits and plants with edible properties. There's no need to represent the act of eating, itself, but that doesn't mean that any representation of eating has to be tedious or lame.

This is true, but, seeing as how the goal of an isometric perspective is to simulate 3D space, even from a fixed viewpoint, having a fully 3D isometric game would not gain much, I don't think. So, the whole "fully 3D versus 2D isometric" is still a pretty good comparison. P:E is actually 3D, but all the environments are 2D. Why? Because the isometric view simulates 3D, and the camera perspective is fixed, so they can put as much detail as they want into those visuals without worrying about allowing them to be dynamically rendered according to 3D space, lighting, etc. What good is generating the backsides of all those structures if you're never going to see them? And if you ARE going to see them, then what good is utilizing a specific perspective that makes a given, 2D view/image appear more like 3D space? That's why all the old-school games with piddly technology utilized it so much. Because they couldn't really do full-3D stuff that looked even half as good at the time. So, they made the best of 2D.

Hence his second, Skyrim example, in which things were still handplaced (foodstuffs) in a crypt, but ended up being pretty infeasible, because of their infini-freshness. An example which everyone seems to be ignoring, as if the sole, specific purpose of this thread was to ensure that rats, specifically, neither wield nor drop greatswords, specifically. Because that wasn't just an example of loot impracticality or anything. Is this the single most important thread on the planet? Perhaps not. But that's hardly a reason to pretend it's pointless.

Ahh. So it's just tilting it that would screw it up?

It's good to know my thoughts are sometimes interesting to others, I actually have a personal vendetta against the taking-for-grantedness of the supposed innate horribleness of things like crafting. When I accumulate enough programming knowledge (I'm a bit of a nublet at the moment), I'm going to make a "game" that's basically JUST a crafting system, and I'm going to figure out a way to actually make it fun without making it that strange "only .03% of the populous -- the people who like to read encyclopedias from cover to cover -- would think this is fun" kind of fun. But, I digress. I honestly just VERY powerfully believe it's approached incorrectly from the get-go, most of the time. Look at the current Assassin's Creed; there's a whole "crafting" system, but it's literally the loosest representation of "crafting" you can possibly have. It's just a tiered structuring of upgrades, and you have to acquire materials to get them. Nothing really says you're crafting anything, aside from the word "crafting" on the menu. How is any gameplay at all representing crafting? And I can't HELP but constantly compare it to combat. With "crafting" like that, you pretty much want certain items, so that you can "craft" a certain item. So, the end goal, in a given scenario, is a particular thing you want to make. A Sword of Swordiness, we'll say. So, what's the difference between having to go out of your way to acquire materials to make this sword, and fighting some epic battle, then prying it from the cold, dead hands of some Orc leader? Well, let's see... the process of dynamic combat results in Sword of Swordiness, or the process of a bunch of possibly-tedious tasks that may not involve much more than traveling to a certain place and plucking certain things from the ground, the running back to some specific table, after putting a bunch of points into some skill, could also result in the same sword. Which would you choose, if you could get the same item out of both? PROBABLY the combat. Maybe not, but probably. Imagine it's good combat, . Anywho, I just think... no one would EVER put in a combat system in which there's a recipe of "1 sword, 2 bows, 1 wand, 1 staff, 5 sets of armor +2, 1,000 hitpoints," and with a "win battle" button that you click, then a pretend battle goes on in some background math that you don't see, and the interface goes all "CONGRATULATIONS!" on you and presents you with loot. And think, "Man, why don't people like the combat?" Unless it's a Facebook game or something. Yet, we do it with crafting. There's no actual crafting process, most of the time. And, if we're LUCKY, there's some depth to the system, instead of obvious progression, a la "5 iron ingots makes iron boots. 5 steel ingots makes steel boots. 5 platinum ingots makes platinum boots. 5 platinum ingots plus a fire crystal makes platinum boots of fire." And yet, you mention improving it, and all that springs to people's minds is "Oh, so you just wanna make it super complicated, but still just as lame? GREAT!" No. I aim to actually improve it. I want to take someone who thinks "Man, I usually pretty much hate crafting in games," and get them to say "Hey, this is actually kind of fun," even if they still opt to forego most of the crafting in the game because it's just not their cup of tea. In other words, I'd rather people didn't eat the food because their taste buds just send bad signals to their brain, and not because the food was cooked/prepared crappily. Even someone who loves steak isn't going to eat steak when it's burnt to a crisp and solid as a brick. In fact, going with food analogies, what we do with crafting is akin to taking a delicious plate of dinner, and compacting it into a pill. Then saying "Oh, yay, I get to eat dinner now!", and swallowing the little tasteless pill. THEN, asking that person how they enjoyed their meal.

This thread is actually about the sensibility of the loot, rather than the nature of its placement. So, yes, while the threads are related, this is not a direct duplicate. Maybe ease up a bit? *shrug*

Right, but the second you rotate a camera, you've lost that very specific form of projection, correct? So, would the fixed nature of the camera not be a property of isometric projection? I'm sincerely asking.